A Splintered Soul - A Loki Fanfic by The Asgardian Worm

Part One: A Bat Out of Hell

My instinct was to floor the pedal and skid wildly down the road with my eyes closed when the thing fell onto the hood of my old pick-up truck. It was a horrible move and I almost died. When the car finally came to a halt, just off the road, nose dipped at the slight incline into the edge of the woods, it rolled off the battered metal and fell with a loud thud to the concrete.

At first I thought I had driven too close to the game-park. I had always hated the place, but the only route to the school led right past it.

"Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead," I pleaded, throwing myself into the door (it required superhuman amounts of force before it yielded).

Stumbling out onto the flattened grass and earth, I wheeled around to the front of the truck, holding my hair back and bracing myself for a bloody sight. No blood and no disjointed limbs poking out at a funny angle. In fact, it wasn't a deer or stag like I had anticipated. I breathed a sigh of relief.

What's wrong with you? my mind shot at me. There is a man sprawled out in front of your car, did it occur to you that you might have killed him? I gasped, quickly kneeling down. Really, Paton, where's your head at?

I rolled my sleeves up, pushing his black hair away from his neck and pressed my fingers to the corticoid vein; Alive. The sigh that followed was an appropriate one. When I was thoroughly convinced that he wasn't too seriously damaged (which is more than I could say for my car), my mind suddenly became very aware of his clothing; leather and steel and a cape.

"Two months too early for Halloween, mate." I said to the alabaster face. There was no response of course. He was out cold. I began to be sick with guilt. It would do to take him to a hospital right away. With whose money? Damn it all.

There was a first aid kit under the seat, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with him. He seemed the picture of health, except that he was unconscious. I bit my lip furiously. I would wait till he came to. If he was in any serious pain, I would take him to the ER myself. Surely he had insurance; else he wouldn't be running about the game-park like a lunatic. I had a tight schedule to maintain, too. It wasn't like I was leaving him unguarded where he fell, I wasn't that horrid.

I awkwardly pulled him up to a sitting position and slung his arm around my shoulder.

"You'd better not be some sort of pervert," I said, trying to get him to his feet. He was like a very large rag-doll. "If you are, I will run you over. This truck still has a pretty good kick to it."

Try being normal, sometimes, my mind reminded me. I snorted, could this even be any more abnormal? I half-dragged, half-carried him around the truck. The back was packed with stacks of books and magazines. I had a shipment from Riverside that I was delivering to the market square in South Dutton. No, that wouldn't be very comfortable, besides, you'd never be able to hoist him up by yourself. True.

Instead, I reached for the door and wrenched it open. Getting the man into the passenger seat was by far the most difficult task of my morning. He flopped around helplessly, completely at me mercy, and I even managed to knock his head on the dashboard.

"I'm sorry," I scrunched up my face, hoping it wouldn't leave a mark.

When he was finally in place, I strapped the seatbelt across his insane get-up and shut the door, careful not to injure him any further. Going around to the driver's side, I pulled myself in, keyed the ignition and set off down the road at a comfortable pace, all the while scanning the edge of the game-park around me. The trees here grew high and their branches embraced each other in an emerald canopy. What an awful use for such a beautiful place.

The sound of a rifle rang through the quiet rows of tree trunks. Poor partridge or deer or fox, bless its soul.

Turning around to the stranger in my truck, I studied the still-as-death face. Where on earth did you come from?

First ever fanfic ever like really. Please go easy.